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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Never in a Chef's jacket




Author: Alyssa Shelasky

The author of ‘Apron Anxiety’ is a writer. The way she lands writing assignments is interesting. She is one of those people who seem to be in the right place to find people and things to write about. Almost till half into the book, the author paints a stark picture of her self as an absolute food illiterate, happy making the same kind of sandwiches months together. Her boyfriends turn out to be ‘more imaginative eater’ than her. With one such love a ‘Pioneer Woman’ story where the author relocates for love not to the boondocks but a city nowhere vibrant like New York. She puts herself into the kingdom of food, which is what exactly her fiancĂ© is tied to more than to her. Her foray into the cooking scene with her blog fame involves a brush with ‘foodie mafia’. She finds herself content as a homecook with an apron. In the day of foodie mania where the food world is wowed with foams she sticks to simple delicious food.

Her culinary journey starts with a desire to feed her loved one. As her kitchen confidence increases, so does her audience. Friends and neighbours and so do the emotional ties with them. She is no longer a kitchen-phobe when she cooks for the chefs who work at her fiance’s restaurant. She is open to positive criticism about her cooking. While sharing the stories of her life, she also shares the recipes that let her celebrate or tough out life - a down day with a pizza made from store bought dough (not a purist) to a Rainy Day Rigatoni. She’s an optimist always appreciating how good the place smells after she has cooked something, like that itself was the end result of the kitchen labor.

Once she realizes the power of food, she starts wielding it. The author finds joy in conceptualizing and creating menus. That’s a long way from a person with just a ‘like’ for food to a someone who executes meals with desired colors in mind.

Her realization that ‘everyone hurts and everyone is hungry’ is a credo that makes her want to cook for others to brighten up some lives.

The writing flows smoothly like a batter without any lumps. The author managed to meld the people, food and recipes without overdoing any of them.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Athletic Ali G




Author: Mark Titus

A general storyline of sports memoirs - a person shows athletic promise, a coach/mentor recognizes the talent and motivates the athlete.
This memoir has none of it. Still the author was part of a team that played in NCAA and NIT basketball games. That's not all of it. The author wrote a successful blog `Club Trillion' and had thousands of fans cheering him wearing his log logo T-shirts towards the end of his 4-year stint at OSU as a bench warmer.
When I picked this book, I even needed help understanding the title, visually I thought he meant more like `don't write me off'. Basketball lingo -Layup, walkon is new to me.

Mark Titus describes in slow detail when he is about to take a shot in the last 15 seconds and plays mind games with the readers about how he did the shot and its outcome.
If the book is not a detailed account of turning points of the games he played during his OSU walk-on time, how moments of glory have been stolen from him, it is 'prank time' where he does not mind pulling one on anyone - coaches, teammates.
From this book, you will take home a different side of athlete unlike the industrious, practicing kind. The author descries how he fit in with the team and how he didn't. Whenever he bemoans a great loss to the team, something wrong has happened to him.

The author notes on his blog that the book is meant for 18-35 age males. Not being a part of that demographic didn't hurt the book but the writing style is not what I usually read. For all the inspiration that the sports athletes are, I now wonder about the writing style of them each.

His story of how he started the `Club Trillion' is interesting. Once he begins explaining the rules of the club membership like a pro, he knows he has arrived. His book romanticises the `truant style' of life (even if just in sports), that will work out for one in a million. Still he has a following, not just from fellow bench warmers, but from people from all walks of life - mechanics.

Similar to college dropout successes and lottery winners, his is a too good to be true story(even if for a little while), but not reproducible. But like them he amassed great funds for charity.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Very interesting read





The content i.e details of Bernini's sculpture is very interesting to know.

The author makes us look at the sculptures in an expert way by mentioning things like - one sculpture having an inaccurate centre of gravity. The concept of one medium used to look like the other being immoral was new to me.

And just one sentence that I needed to know, about how Bernini viewed his work -' he considered most of his works far inferior to the Beauty that he knew and conceived in his mind'. Bernini's work and his interest in it seems like 'progressive improvement'. So It was interesting to know that he was inspired in a way that didnt stop at one work or with the greater beauty that he saw, he never seems to have been at loss for inspiration.

My favourite is Cornaro Chapel.


Oct 5, 2006, 5/5

Excellent novel




Author: Khaled Hosseini


'The Kite Runner' by Khalid Hosseini is a great novel with exactly all the story and style, all perfect.


If you write like Hosseini, you will never have to think twice before giving your works for anyone to review.


In his official site, Hosseini calls 'Amir', the protagonist. But while reading the book, you would like to call it the story of Amir or that of the Kite Runner or Amir's father and of all the characters in the book. Rarely do you come across a book where each character has been so well etched.


There's so much to say and wonder about his writing style. He introduces you to the world of his characters by use of certain phrases and next time you come across them , since they are no longer new to you , you comfortably get under the skin of his characters.


'Rich' is the word that springs up to your mind when you see lots of words at work describing scenes. This surely is not the kind of description readers have been fed years on, the one which you need to read over again to see whats been told. Writing dialogues comes so natural to him.


In short, Hosseini has learnt the art of using words to work for him in a very infectious way each adding cumulatively to the effect of the next and the previous.


Sep 3, 2005, 5/5

Untroubled




Author: Ana Castillo

Just a little background of New Mexico's history and you will be ready to understand why the connection of the people to the land is different from those of other Native Indians. 'So far from God' shows how having moved away from the land of their ancestors, people fail to connect to it in the same way as their predecessors.
Although it deals with serious issues, it does not fail to make you laugh out loud when weird things happen to Sofi's children and she's still one piece. And all this when you thought you were beginning to feel pity for Sofi beset with troubles for children.

Aug 4, 2007, 5/5
read for a class.

Culture and more




Author: Amy Tan


This book is a yarn spun by four women , Chinese Americans and their mothers who have seen dificult times. It is a good mix of else where and now.

The book of is an easy read. The flow of the book will not let you put it down.

I liked reading about the various practices in China. Their belief in fortune, trying to beget favorable conditions, even when everything is not so right, is fascinating.

Different voices in the book form a bridge between short story and novel forms. Although the distinctness of the voices is not preserved, the matter of the stories are still conveyed in a very interesting manner.


May 19, 2005, 5/5

Broaden




Author: Pico Iyer

Travel is no longer just adventure.

The Accidental Explorer's Guide to Patagonia - Putting it in a very trite way, its about an unbelievably beautiful place.

Canadian Gothic - Adds the dimension of local people(famous and everyday) to place known for its locale.

Travel can be by people driven with an agenda to understand a place, its people's struggles, even if the very first step is trouble.

Peter Hessler - Chasing the Wall - best
Mark Jenkins- The Ghost Road - best

A Fleet One - I would never guess, something on trucks could make it to this list.

Travel to places where story of a person at the same time reveals the nation's plight

Elizabeth Rubin - The Road to Herat
Kira Salak - Places of Darkness - saving mountain gorillas
Paul Salopek - Shattered Sudan


Jul 20, 2009, 4/5

Parents for kids



How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm: And Other Adventures in Parenting (from Argentina to Tanzania and everywhere in between)


Author: Mei-ling Hopgood

The author researches into how different nations deal differently regarding the main worries of new parents – how/when to put the baby to sleep, how to get them to eat their veggies, how much of the baby depot should I hoard at home, when to potty train them, when to intervene in kids fights and so on and so forth.

The author uses studies, statistics and others expertise to understand what she finds around the world.

I had heard from a friend that on her trip to Mexico, that she could buy food late into the night. I never thought what that would mean to the sleep of babies when parents feel like getting a late chow on the go. I have read that French children are made to try many foods, so they can widen their palates. The author learnt that the French children are fed the same food that the adults eat. Why train with baby food when they will anyways vie for whats on your plate?

As she learns how things are done differently around the world, the author tries to incorporate them into her life too. Not all of them are feasible, like carrying her baby in a sling like Kenyans, on a flight trip. She finds it like an anti-thesis situation like ‘I like hiking but Er! I am lost, its noon and I’m out of water’.

When she learns of the how, she also looks into the why. The ‘vestibular stimulation’ of babies by carrying them on the mothers is such a great motivator for carrying them so, but how long can we do that?

When it comes to potty training, the author introduces us to the slit pants used in China to facilitate elimination for babies and parents alike, who don’t have to drop everything before the babies soil everything. The author is committed to using the early potty training, customizing the time to the baby’s development unlike, Mayim Bialik who in ‘Beyond the sling’, sings praises of ‘elimination communication’ but never strongly says ’ It worked me, go use it’, instead she cops out that she is not suggesting we follow it.

 Her study also involves the need for parents-child play time, equal involvement of both the parents in the rearing of the child, play time with older kids and no parental guidance,  Structured play Vs free style play.

During high school, I saw a toddler mimic her mom washing clothes, with a mug and a small clothing article of her own. Such partaking of work prepares them for real grown-up life.

The author muses about globalization influencing the said practices. 

Another similar vein book




Do Parents Matter?: Why Japanese Babies Sleep Soundly, Mexican Siblings Don’t Fight, and American Families Should Just Relax

Sunday, May 13, 2012

A face to a voice on NPR





Author: Frank Deford

Sports as he knows it

I have heard a couple of NPR commentaries by Frank Deford. Long time ago, I had heard that one of my classmate’s father was a sportswriter, but never learnt how different his life was from a regular writer.

Frank Deford has reservations about bloggers, game score statisticians and the future of sports journalism. He is not one to keep a secret of them. Being in his game of writing for a long time, he chronicles how one day when his contemporary players are ready to retire and coach, it hits him hard that he is out of place and he cant identify with the music in the locker room.

He shows the regard or lack of it for sportswriting in the recognition it receives in the form of awards. He compares how sportswriting was when he started and how it is now. Then the onslaught of TV and now the internet, obliterate the need of a sportswriter. For a ‘not so bright boy’ he did well by reporting about ‘unusual personalities, or athletic exotica, the Americana of sports, out on the fringes’. He takes us to the time when sportswriters gathered in pressboxes to give the public blow by blow accounts of the games. He also compares how earlier he could meet the athletes in the lockerroom for statements while now they do press meets.

This book thrives on rich characterization of real people. Grantland Rice’s profile is written in such a way that lack of familiarity with Rice does not take away the interest from the piece like that on exclusive clubs at Princeton. The success of his writing must be due to his attempt to ‘humanize commisioners’. As you approach a paragraph regarding his nostalgia for sports and sportswriting of the yore, you can pat your back for realising it that for him sports was always about the people. In his words -‘Nowadays sportswriting is too much about predicting games; then, it was more about revealing human nature’. He uses his writing wand as a justice tool to give every athlete and coach their due. Through his writing on women in sports, I learnt of a new game – Roller Derby. I liked the description of ‘three match game’ that the journalists played. Another game that I havent heard of before.
His initial writing has led him to be a judge for beauty contests. He boasts that
‘you are never going to find another expert writer the equal of yours truly with feet in both the tennis and the pulchritude camps’.
He has reported on all kinds of games. The book has many interesting anecdotes from his years of writing from the stands. On tough subjects, he stood up. He called out ‘Commercial racism’.
Writing about the coverage of sports on road, he became the chronicler of Americana of sports. When he says ‘I wasn’t just writing about Americana. I was Americana.’ Somehow he becomes the snake with its tail in its mouth encompassing the world of sports.



Kiwiland




Author: John Kinsella
A poetry book after a long time.
We learn about kangaroos in and out. A goat. has it ever been treated with so much weight? 

Should mom feed or hold you in womb to mother?




I picked this book as I am always curious to know how the world looks at India. The book turned out to be a great info on In vitro fertilisation and the emotions involved in going through the whole process.

I wonder what it must be like to have your body suffused with hormones externally. The author has described what the medical procedures the genetic mother goes through in the process of IVF. She brings out her disbelief even while going through the process in a foreign territory.

It was a revelation that its not just women who cant conceive that make use of surrogates but also mothers who are prone to miscarriages. She says that everybody knows that first trimester is danger zone, though not that common knowledge – I realize the tenuousness of human life in the foetal stage.

Filhaal - a bollywood take on surrogacy.

Coming to experiences of the author in India, except for the travel urged by her mother in law, she has been mostly inside the vegetarian village of Anand. The author has been to India before to mourn her mother's loss. Her interactions with her surrogate, even without a common language inform her about the surrogate as well as her self.

'The sacred thread' had me in tears when the surrogate mother gave the children away with their protective threads.

food lit mag




The first issue of Lucky peaches was large on Ramen noodles. In the second issue, the theme is 'The Sweet Spot'. 
'The Ripeness and the rot' moves from a vegetable's freshness situation to a chef's most creative period which is generalised to all artists. Rebecca Rusch  is an example of comeback in sports.  This ties in with 'Perfect moment' of knowing the window of the best taste of an ingredient.
sweet spots on banana.
Christina Tosi details few recipes like Arnold palmer cake made at Momofuku milk bar.
'Expired to perfection' is a look at refrigerator's contents and their status. 'Repurposing'. 
I like the comic-satire of accepting the mistakes in their recipes. The comic of the experiences of an experimental cook speak to the uncertainity of the dish hanging over the head of the cook.  It is literal when a sheet of pasta is hanging from the head of the cook, being churned out of the pasta machine. 
There is a great history of Miso but when it read list of ingredients it became irrelevant like the many kinds of ramen in the first issue.
Not all of it is accessible. I dont get what they mean by 'high level cooking'. Never the less, you learn many things about cooking, not just techniques and ingredients but a broad look at cooking not just as a set of recipes or ingredients but also as an art both in execution and representation, its tradition and history.


Saturday, May 12, 2012

Eating lychees under an avocado tree




Author: Gail Simmons
At first I mistook the ‘professional eater’ in the title for the competitor eater like Man Vs Food.
Our first experiences with food start with mom and her kitchen. Gail Simmons’s interest in cooking too took off at her mom’s kitchen making omelettes. Later she took this to an assembly line level churning out 50 of those at a Kibbutz in Israel that sounds like a ‘Biosphere’ experiment.
Her father having grown up in South Africa, the author had access to special foods there resulting in a wider palate. She has traveled widely and tasted food in all those places.
She let her passion lead her to her career in food writing and then a Merchandising manager. She went to culinary school, worked on the line and learned the business of restaurants. She excerpted a food journal to give the readers an idea of how much food she tastes in a day.
I have seen my share of ‘Chopped’. So I was interested in knowing the behind the scenes of cooking competition on TV. The author has written of her experiences judging food on top Chef. She classifies the contestants whom she calls chef-testants. ‘Top Chef Just Desserts’ was an insight into how food contests have to consider the cooking time and recipe policies before issuing a challenge.
The  book's focus on food is maintained well all along the food. Even when she describes her wedding, the emphasis is on the food for the event. Even though this book does not have many recipes or much cooking, with its description of techniques (how in modernist cuisine, having a foam adds the essence without adding texture or volume) and a wide variety of foods it urges the reader to savor each morsel to get the taste/essence of it. Like the author says 'being a young line cook (is) you dont use your mind much. You are taking orders. you're not thinking or creating - ... I needed to go back to using my head'.
In the end she does say that she is ‘not in the business of competitive consumption’.


Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Culinary skill acquisition at 'Chez Weil Duane'




How to Cook Like a Man: A Memoir of Cookbook Obsession by 


Theres the eternal question of art for arts sake or for the buyer/viewer. When it comes to food we know its about the one who is going to eat the food, but its difficult to wrap your head around the fact that atleast courtesy would call for exclusion of bell peppers from the ‘pav bhaaji’ if your audience does not like the peppers, but it wont be the real pav bhaaji if you get compassionate. The author is in for a surprise when he ends up ‘interested in food as love – food as sustenance, generosity and balm’ after years journey of hacking at cookbooks.

I like reading anything about food and cooking. After reading ‘how to cook like a man’ by Daniel Duane, when I realised that ‘No Cheating, no dying I had a good marriage. Then I tried to make it better’ was by his wife Elizabeth Weil, I was curious to know the effect of the author’s cooking straight from the horses’ mouth.

Daniel Duane has an obsession for cookbooks, especially the ones which have some chronological order associated with them. ‘the book’s A-Z quality – inviting me to cook every recipe therein –‘. The book being referred to is Chez Panisse Vegetables. He didn’t stop with that. He then moved to other books by Alice Waters.  He justifies that ‘…my (his) compulsions came not from dysfunction or narcissism but rather from a healthy impulse to find joy and curiosity in everyday life’. But it wasn’t just a compulsion for the new dad, he was doing the cooking to feed his family that consists of a wife who likes to eat simple food.

The author’s wife refers to his pre-cook book days as ‘when food was still fuel for him’. Faced with all this food on the table, she wondered if he could offer her choices in meals. The chef conceded for choice in breakfast but not in dinner, which is when he gets to follow all the complicated and exotic recipes, not to mention the expensive grocery shopping preceding that.

His wife’s pregnancy, the house’s dire carpenting needs do not deter the man with a knife. He carried sourdough sponge along with him, if he went out of town so he could feed it regularly.  Somewhere along the line when too many truffle recipes alienated him from his friends, he realised that he needed to mould his interest to meet his family needs instead of maniacally following recipes.

In the end he is at peace with culinary tastes of his family members. When he began he had two signature dishes. After years of making all the recipes, he has learnt the middle way of keeping his audience and their food taste in mind.

He is not just a home cook. Magazine assignments take him fishing, let him go on a steak marathon in Vegas, meetings with the food celebrities. This reporting life gives us a peek into the exclusive world of food.


When he met Alice, he asked what she would do with a certain set of ingredients and that’s when I realized that I read an article of his in ‘food and wine’ which combined this experience as well as cooking with Thomas Keller.
  
In cooking you begin with the ache and end with the object, where in most of the life of the appetites – courtship, marriage – you start with the object and end with the ache – Adam Gopnik




Z Wraps 3-Pack, Reusable Food Wrap and Food Saver, Alternative to Plastic Wrap, Sustainable, Eco Friendly Beeswax Food Wrap - Small, Medium, Large (Connect the Dots)

Married to an obsessive cook




Berkeley faith in better living through chemistry - Elizabeth weil
Neil LaBute
surfer mellow
Sukkah
Octopus Daube
Creatine in ox heart for muscle recovery
Kung Fu grasshopper
Spatchcocked chicken


Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Sign language

is not the same to everyone

To natives:
Beggars put their left hand
on stomach
and the right - fingers
gathered to join at tips
are held midair ever so
close to the mouth
to mimic eating

To foreigners:
The right hand holds
an imaginary fork

********
from Anne Lamotts experience of 'beggars ..pantomiming feeding themselves with fork' in India from 'Some Assembly required'.

Resounding questions




After going through this book, comparing Jerry McGill's experience with 'Save the Date' Jennifer's, a big glaring question. What about legal recourse?

With every aspect of life that has been and could have been, McGill tried to place his assailant in a definable web of love and family ties that keep us rooted. He did this by asking him questions around the time the tragic event of the shooting happened and his stance of everyday life.

Grandson's first year




We as parents have the illusion that we make our kids stronger, but they make us stronger - Sam Lamott
When Sam tells Annie in an interview that the child in question 'gets bigger and stronger every regardless of us(them), instead of because of us(them)', Annie must have felt less helpless about bringing up Sam without the father around. 
Annie summarises life's lessons to Jax that  there is no instruction manual.

Funny that Annie should go into Enraha mode to shoo away beggars in India - My Grotesque nation.

Four immutable laws of spirit
Japanese cow noisemaker

foot phone

They never walk towards you - Anne Lamott

Annie is the author of 

We call these the journals of the babies. But they are by the mothers/parents. The language and the behavior of the baby that we try to decode.

How would the journal be in the baby's language?
After the morning feeding, I smiled and regaled mommy.


Anne Lamott says that her grandson's actions would put Jack lalanne. When I read that line, I thought of all the times where we do this comparision to the top performers. Why is it not enough to say the best of the fitness gurus (That would also refer to the times when news traveled not farther than the next village). To make it real, we give a specific name that is not known to all.


I can barely work a toaster - Anne Lamott in reply to possessing any knowledge of car wiring. If the toaster she uses has anything to do with producing a graphic of the weather on the bread, then its something.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Sometimes

A hand on your chest
in ASL "please"

hand together
on your chest
like in prayer

she stops
to shake her
head
like she's had
some heady mix

Wednesday, May 2, 2012